I'm sorry if this has been asked before, I've searched through some other threads and haven't seen an exact answer. I have seen that there are several plug-in mods available for the Prius. So far I see discussion of improved gas mileage. But what I'm wanting to do is essentially have an electric car. But I don't need a lot of range. Let me explain my scenario and maybe somebody can tell me if this is possible. I work approximately 4 miles from my home. The fastest speed I ever need to achieve is about 45 mph. I actually built a conversion electric car a few years ago and drove it to work for a year or so but ended up having to sell the car due to financial troubles. Well, the financial troubles are gone but it occurred to me that it costs $10,000 to do a conversion of a regular car and almost a year's worth of work. Besides, my EV could only realistically maintain 45 mph anyway. I'm thinking I could possibly buy a used Prius, do the plug-in modification and be in the same cost ball-park with a lot less work and even still have an air-conditioner. Not only that, but if I needed to take the car on a longer trip, I could revert to gasoline. But the goal is to be able to drive back and forth to work (about 8 miles per day) without ever having to turn on the gas engine. So.. Is this possible? Do any of the plug-in mods actually allow you to force the car to run in EV only?
You might want to check out the BMS+ plug-in conversion. Since you have done a full conversion, this would be a piece of cake for you, and the cost is very reasonable. See my thread at One Year of Driving Our BMS+ Plug-In Prius , or for more details at One Year of Operation in a Plug-in Prius with Norm’s BMS+ System . I spent about $2200 (plus the Prius), and only a few weeks work--you are correct, you get the air conditioner and the convenience of a single nice car that can also do the long trips. Good luck, NW BMS+ Driver
Engineer has a mod for the Prius that I thinks starts at only about $2000, depending on how much power your want. I thinks you can finds another thread on this forum where people have (will) ordered multiple sets and tied them together to increase the range with success. IIRC, the $2000 mod will give you about 10 miles in electric. As others have said, 42 is the upper limit for driving without the ICE, but I don't see you causeing a major backup if you drove 3-5 below the speed limit. But I don't know the traffic that is around you at those times. I do it regulary on a 40MPH road, but traffic is light.
You may want to ask in PHEV sub-forum: Prius PHEV Plug-In Modifications - PriusChat Forums. There are a lot of experienced PHEV drives in there.
